The present invention relates to robotic systems in general and, more particularly, to a self-configuring robotic system and method.
The recently articulated concern about "productivity" in the industrialized countries of the world has focused attention upon the role of robotics in society. Robots currently are utilized in a number of industries, such as, the automotive industry, to perform repetitive tasks in an environment that is often hazardous or unpleasant for human beings.
The robots are programmed to perform different tasks with the intelligence for each robot being either self-contained within the robot or resident in one or more generally centralized computers that control the robot. Although these two types of architecture are perfectly functional, they each have drawbacks in terms of robotic system configuration and reconfiguration. In the case of self-contained robots, each robot must be reprogrammed because there is no commonality of central computer usage or sequential control of a plurality of robots. Each robot essentially is autonomous. The opposite architectural configuration of centralized computer control requires reprogramming with no off-loading of computer tasks to the robotic device.
Accordingly, it is a general object of the present invention to provide a self-configuring robotic system with a novel archiecture.
It is a specific object of the invention to provide a self-configuring robotic system in which all robotic device intelligence is on the device side of physically separable electrical connections to a computer that has a central processing unit and an operating system containing at least a nucleus, a sequence reprogrammer and task support services.
It is another object of the invention to provide a robotic system in which each robot or defined task performing device has an associated module that is electrically connected to the robot or device and which contains all of the intelligence for the particular device and a control block flag and starting offset for the system computer.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a self-configuring robotic system in which each device module is electrically connected to the system computer through physically separable electrical connections so that system configuration and reconfiguration can be accomplished by "plugging in" the desired modules and their asssociated devices.